Chapter 2

Hofstadir, Svealand Region, Scandia

It was cold. She’d grown up in Britannia and had dealt with its winters and regular rain in all that time. But there was cold ... and then there was Scandi.

She was leaning against the railing, watching the port village come into view, her cloak pulled tight against her to protect her from the frigid air over the waters.

She’d been here before, as a younger woman with her father when he’d come to negotiate some trade. They’d been hostile then, afraid to align with an enemy of the Carthaginians. Her father’s ship had needed to sneak into port in the dead of night.

Now she was here, in the daylight, the power of the greatest empire in the known world behind her.

And yet none of it seemed to matter to this tiny collection of villages, not even with a new existential threat clawing its way toward them.

Last night, she’d told Ky it was ‘just ruffled feathers,’ but in her gut, not even she believed what she’d been selling. The reports that arrived after the Scandi representatives left Devnum a week ago, just after their departure, had been troubling. Someone was stirring dissent among the villages, questioning the alliance they had worked so carefully to forge.

In her experience, mysterious opposition usually meant external influence, and with the Eastern Empire still pressing their war effort, any destabilization of their carefully constructed alliances could prove catastrophic.

She had sent word to Talogren immediately, asking the Caledonian chieftain to oversee imperial affairs in her absence. The thought of leaving Titus in someone else’s care, even temporarily, created a knot in her stomach that the sea voyage had done nothing to ease.

Not that she’d had any choice other than to come.

The captain called out from behind her as the ship was about to dock. Lucilla gathered her traveling cloak closer and prepared to disembark. Whatever was happening in Scandia, she would face it directly rather than allow their hard-won alliance to crumble through neglect or miscommunication.

No one was there to greet them, none of the pomp that normally accompanied her arrival. She didn’t take it personally. She was determined and focused.

She and her entourage made their way to the center of the village, to the hall that her father had been to once before, larger than it was then, some of the newer building techniques recently made popular in Britannia clearly in place.

That is not what interested her, however.

What interested her was the large number of people gathered outside of it. At least that explained the lack of reception.

Inside the hall, people filled the available space, their attention focused at the center of the hall where a long table had been set up. Behind it, she saw the faces of elders she knew.

Ragnvald and Merimund were there, along with Biorngeir and Einarb from the southern regions.

Some of the men who’d been at the negotiations a week ago.

There were more. Men she hadn’t met but some she recognized by reputation and some she had no idea who they were. Based on where they were seated, they had to be elders. And if that was true, elders from most of the regions of Scandia were present.

Concerning.

She knew someone else, as well. The young man standing in front of them. The young man who’d come with Ragnvald and the rest to Devnum. Like them, he was dressed finely, although more finely than any of the elders.

Her appearance had caused a stir as they entered, and the young nobleman turned toward her, a smile spreading across his face that held no warmth whatsoever.

“And here,” he declared, raising his voice and pointing directly at her. “We have proof of everything I have been telling you. The Empress of Britannia herself arrives to ensure our compliance with her demands.”

The hall fell silent as every head turned toward Lucilla. She kept her expression neutral, neither advancing nor retreating.

“You see how quickly they respond when their interests are threatened. Not a month passes after we sign their treaty before imperial representatives arrive to supervise our affairs. Is this the independence they promised us? Is this the respect for Scandi sovereignty we were assured would remain intact? I tell you, this alliance they have negotiated is nothing more than a carefully disguised enslavement of our people.”

An elder she didn’t know stood and said, “You speak of enslavement, Beruwald, but where were your concerns when Eastern ships tried to push their way north?”

“Have Eastern armies threatened our shores? Have foreign invaders landed on our beaches? No. The only foreign power that has brought hardship to our people sits in that imperial palace in Devnum. They strangled our trade with their embargo. They watched our families go hungry while they demanded our submission. They...”

Elder Ragnvald attempted to respond. “The embargo was a problem, but we’ve done the same thing to other nations, in negotiations. There were misunderstandings...”